Whippoorwills

The other day I saw three wild turkeys while walking to work. Pretty exciting, but I crossed the street because those things can be mean! I enjoyed seeing the turkeys, but the bird I would really like to see (but haven't) is a whippoorwill.

Whippoorwills get their name because of their call, which sounds like "Whip poor Will." They tend to nest in open fields near woods, so my chances of seeing one in Boston are low.

Some good spooky folklore has developed about these little birds over time. According to Rev. Samuel Peters 1781 book General History of Connecticut, whippoorwills were able to predict storms, but by the 19th century Clifton Johnson also recorded the eerie belief that if a whippoorwill sings near a house, it is a sign of impending death (although some of his informants claimed it is only a sign of trouble.)

The bird's sinister reputation was cemented by the famed horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, who drew heavily on New England folklore when writing his stories of cosmic terror. In the early 20th century, Lovecraft discussed whip-poor-wills with his friend Edith Miniter, a resident of Wilbraham, Massachussetts, who told him:

"It is whispered that they linger and flutter around houses where death is approaching, hoping to catch the soul of the departed as it leaves. If the soul eludes them, they disperse in quiet disappointment; but sometimes they set up a chorused clamour which makes the watchers turn pale and mutter - with that air of hushed, awestruck portentousness which only a backwoods Yankee can assume - "They got 'im!" (quoted in Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, ed. by S.T. Joshi. New York, Penguin Books, 2001)

Lovecraft incorporated this piece of lore into his popular story The Dunwich Horror, which spread the belief in the whippoorwill's soul snatching abilities and has kept it alive into the 21st century.

It's possible that these beliefs about whippoorwills originated with the local Indians. For example, a video available on the Mohegan tribe Web site mentions the belief that makiwasug, or magical little people, would travel through the forest at night in the shape of whipppoorwills. It looks like the whippoorwills reputation became more sinister over time and as it moved across cultures.

Snapping Turtles, UFOs and a Witch's Estate

The Muddy River - full of mysteries and big turtles!

This morning while walking along the Muddy River in the Boston Fens I saw a big snapping turtle sitting in the grass. For the Algonquians of southern New England, turtles were considered emissaries from the watery netherworld, and bridged the gap between humans and spirits. (More information can be found in Kathleen Bragdon's Native People of Southern New England, 1500-1650.) I was afraid it might take one of my toes back to the netherworld, so I kept my distance.

I walk along the Muddy River all the time. It weaves through some interesting Boston neighborhoods, and has a lot of folklore attached to it. Cheri Ravi (author of Haunted Massachusetts - Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Bay State), claims that North America's first UFO was seen over the Muddy River in 1638. Puritan settler James Everell and two friends were rowing on the river one night when a large luminous square object appeared in the sky above them. It changed its shape, first into a swine and then an arrow, and flew back and forth between Charlestown and Boston. When it vanished, the men realized they had traveled a mile up the river against the current without even rowing. The original account can be found in John Winthrop's The History of New England, 1630-1639. I don't think Puritans used the word UFO!

Anne Hibbins, a wealthy Boston widow who was executed for witchcraft in 1656, owned a three-hundred acre farm called Stanford on the Muddy River. I don't know exactly where Stanford was located, or what's there now - Wheelock College? Longwoood Medical Area? Expensive condos? The full story of her trial can be found in D.Brenton Simons Witches, Rakes and Rogues.

Goody Glover: Witch, Martyr, Irish Pub

A while ago I went to the North End, and came upon Goody Glover's, a bar notable for being both an Irish pub in an Italian neighborhood, and for being named after a 17th century Boston woman executed for witchcraft.




According to D. Brenton Simon's Witches, Rakes and Rogues, Goody Glover was a widowed Irish woman living in Boston with her daughter, a laundress in the 1680's. Goody Glover had a reputation as a foul-mouthed troublemaker, and her harried husband allegedly said shortly before he died "that she was undoubtedly a witch... and would quickly arrive unto the punishments due such a one."

In the summer of 1688 Martha Goodwin, the granddaughter of a prominent Puritan minister, accused Goody Glover's daughter of stealing some laundry, an accusation that Goody Glover answered with a string of profanity. Soon after, Martha and her three siblings began having the proverbial "strange fits" - a sure sign of witchcraft in Puritan Boston.




Goody Glover was arrested and put on trial as a witch. Although she spoke English, Goody frustrated the court by answering all questions in Gaelic. She never confessed to being a witch, but did confess to being a Catholic, which was probably almost as shocking back then.

Various rag dolls filled with goat hair were found in her home, which the court assumed were used to magically afflict the Goodwin children.

During the proceedings some physicians examined her to make sure she was not "crazed in her intellectuals and had not procured to herself by folly and madness the reputation of a witch." They declared her sane, and she was hanged on November 16, 1688. She was the fourth and final person executed for witchcraft in Boston.





A plaque outside the bar claims that she was executed for her Catholic faith, and was the first Catholic martyr in Massachusetts. Was she really executed because she was a Catholic? Plenty of other non-Catholics were accused of witchcraft and executed during this period. I think maybe her Catholicism was a sign that Goody was a strong-willed, nonconformist woman who didn't care what her neighbors thought - exactly the kind of person to be accused of witchcraft.

The pub's Website notes that November 16 is officially Goody Glover day in Boston.

Word of the day: hubbub!

What's all the hubbub? A still from "After the Mayflower."

On Friday we watched the first episode of the PBS mini-series We Shall Remain, which explores different events in Native American history. Episode one, "After the Mayflower", relates the story of Wampanoag sachem Massasoit and his son, Metacom (aka King Philip) and their interactions with the English settlers. No spoiler alert needed here - it doesn't have a happy ending.

In one scene, the Wampanoags and the English get together for the first Thanksgiving. In addition to food, the Wampanoags bring a game of chance that involves bouncing colored pieces of bone or wood in a basket. While they're bouncing the basket, the players chant "Hub! Hub!" The game was called, naturally, hubbub.

Meaning a noisy uproar, hubbub is still a common word today. For example, if you hear some noisy neighbor kids outside, you can scream out the window: "Hey! What's all the hubbub?!?"

I thought the word "hubbub" was coined to describe this game, and came into English usage from Algonquin. I was wrong. Apparently, it was used in English as early as the 1500's, well before the Pilgrims came to America. Either it was just a coincidence the game required people to shout "Hub! Hub!", or the Pilgrims misheard the shout that way.

I got my information about the hubbub game from Howard Russell's Indian New England Before the Mayflower. A great book!

More New England Snake Lore

The timber rattlesnake, crotalus horridus - still found in Massachusetts?

I always associate this time of year with snakes, so here's another post about them. My last snake post was about a piece of European lore found in Massachusetts, but the Algonquians had a lot of snake lore as well.

There are many varieties of snakes in New England, including two poisonous species: the copperhead (agkistrodon contortix) and the timber rattlesnake (crotalus horridus). Snakes are powerful creatures, representing the underworld, the soul, and spiritual warfare. It was believed that snakes have the ability to control the weather.

Rattlesnakes were both revered and feared by many Native American groups. For example, if an Ojibwa encountered a rattlesnake, he would address it as Grandfather, propitiate it with tobacco smoke, and ask for its blessing. Alexander Henry, a fur trader in the Great Lakes in the 1700's, relates how a band of Ojibwa sacrificed a dog to a rattlesnake in an attempt to bring favorable weather. Even those Native Americans who killed rattlesnakes did so with great respect. The Potawatomi of Ohio would sprinkle the body of a dead rattlesnake with tobacco and pray over it to avoid its wrath.

Among the Algonquians of southern New England, the underworld god Hobomock would most often appear to shamans as a snake, and dreaming about a snake was a sign that an individual was destined to become a shaman. Rattlesnakes were one of the guardian spirits (along with hawks and crows) that helped shamans heal their clients - and kill their enemies.

After the New England tribes converted to Christianity, they associated snakes with old pagan practices. For example, the Wampanoag of Cape Cod told how Elisha Naughaught, one of their church deacons, was attacked in the 1700's by a group of black snakes. They were perhaps sent by an enemy pagan shaman, and are clearly indicative of underworld powers.

I got my information from two sources: William Simmons's Spirit of the New England Tribes, and Thomas Palmer's Landscape With Reptile, a fantastic book about the history and lore of rattlesnakes in Massachusetts. Once extremely common in Massachusetts, rattlesnakes are now only found in the Blue Hills south of Boston.